experience matters

Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary

Last week I had the pleasure of attending The Art of Marketing Conference with a few colleagues from Critical Mass. It was a great day for inspiration with an amazing line up of Guest Speakers:

• Chip Heath – author of Made to Stick
• Gary Vaynerchuck – author of Crush It and creator of Wine Library TV (http://tv.winelibrary.com/)
• Sir Ken Robinson – author The Element and internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources
• Mitch Joel – digital marketing expert and author of Six Pixels of Separation
• Sally Hogshead – author of Fascinate
• Max Lenderman – Director of OuterActive at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky and author of Brand New World

The key takeaway I took from this conference was how important it is to have a strong, unique & motivating force guiding the organization forward in an open, honest and caring manner, because the digital environment has revolutionized the way consumers & brands interact.

As I’ve written in the past, consumers are more in control of an organization’s brand promise than ever before, since word of mouth (WOM) is on steroids thanks to social media. I think Gary Vaynerchuck described how brands must adapt to this digital environment brilliantly when he said that businesses have to go back to small town business values – where customers are people you interact with directly and shouldn’t be treated like faceless numbers. Under this principle, if you don’t deliver on your promise, consumers won’t give you their business and they will make sure to tell everyone in their community about your shortcomings. However, if you do deliver on your promise and care for your customers, they will be proud to recommend your brand to everyone they come across.

To reap the benefits of creating strong brand advocates with extensive reach, brands must change their perspective on interacting with customers in this highly engaging digital world and focus on their purpose to become open, honest & caring. An organization’s purpose stimulates the brand promise. This promise must be captivating & relevant to customers as the market becomes more competitive to give reasons to select/buy your brand over another-especially as brands become more global increasing the competitive set. Sally Hogshead described this as the need to fascinate in order to captivate & win your customer’s attention. This unique point of fascination & intrigue not only attracts customers who appreciate what the brand is all about, but it also attracts talent to the organization who feel they can contribute & help the organization deliver and even overachieve on its brand promise.

Chip Heath mentioned that it’s this kind of emotional motivation (a sense of association & identity) which helps stimulate change in an organization. Considering the importance of remaining relevant to consumers and interacting with them in a way that is meaningful in the current environment (i.e. encouraging socializing, sharing, collaborating & creating), an organization must continually facilitate change. Therefore, brand purpose helps motivate the organization’s talent to innovate & create new products/services to deliver on its promise, giving consumers a meaningful reason to select your brand over another. In addition, the purpose also attracts talent whose values align with the brand, enabling people to work on what they’re passionate about and be in their element, as Sir Ken Robinson mentioned. This makes it easy for them, and therefore the organization, to deliver on the brand promise, creating an organization that is not afraid to operate in an open & honest manner.

So let’s recap. To be a successful brand in this evolved environment, you must have a motivating purpose, which creates a fascinating promise to attract customers and top talent. Once you’ve brought in customers you must deliver on your promise & continue to care/listen/engage with them. If you fail to do this, the strength of WOM will surely lead the brand to suffer.

An organization may not control its brand, but it sure does have the power to strongly influence it by leveraging digital tools. It is important to note, however, that these tools do not replace traditional methods of branding, but rather offer additional ways to deliver on and influence the brand and further emphasize the reasons to buy!

Thanks to all the people responsible for arranging such a great day with an inspiring line-up of speakers!

Nicole is an Associate Planner from the Critical Mass Calgary office.